MONTANO: Natural Voice: I must admit that I think that I have been chosen for this panel because I've performed and dressed up as a mother superior, a saint, a guru, a mystic, a priest, a martyr, a swami, and a healer for thirty years and called that play, Art. As Shakespeare, Annie Sprinkle, and others have said, "Dresseth liketh undt nuneth, duth noteth undt sainteth maketh!"Saint Voice (as Theresa of Avila): "The first thing that we have to do, and that at once, is to rid ourselves of love for this body of ours."Natural Voice: Art once done has a life of its own. It's our baby, a child, and as good and loyal parents we're responsible to that baby. So I'm here to be as honest as possible.Saint Voice: "It is when I possess least that I have fewest worries and the Lord knows that I am more afflicted when there is excess of anything than when there is a lack of it."Question: DESCRIBE YOUR EARLY SPIRITUAL LIFE (I'm using a self-imposed interview).Natural Voice: I was enculturated early into strict Roman Catholicism in an upstate New York village right out of a storybook. Mom: Irish/Yankee/convert from Episcopalianism, was a comedienne, painter, questioner of authority in a subtle way. Dad: pious/creative/silent/focused; his parents, non-English speaking from Campobasso, both devout, silent, hard-working.Question: WHAT WAS YOUR EARLY CHILDHOOD SPIRITUAL ENCUL TURATION?Saint Voice: "There are two kinds of love, one is purely spiritual and has nothing to do with sensuality or the tenderness of nature. The other is family love."Question: WHAT DID YOUR ENCULTURATION LOOK LIKE LATER ON IN YOUR WORK? WE ALL IMITATE OUR CHILDHOODS AND EARLY ISSUES. THAT'S A GIVEN. DID YOUR WORK LOOK ROMAN CATHOLIC? Natural Voice: My answer is in the form of two lists. LIST 1:CATHOLIC MEMORIES

the smell of high quality incense

the inflexibility of doctrine

the dedication of vow-taking nuns

the talking saint statues

the patriarchal exclusivity

the Tiffany stained-glass windows

the fasting before Communion, Fridays, and Lent

the stories of statues crying blood

the sounds of small bells at Communion

the sounds of the large Angelus bells

the fear of dropping the Host

the poetry of the Latin Mass

the ritually-tailored vestments

the possibility of purgatory

the daily examen of conscience

the mystery of Transubstantiation

the ecstatic surrender to creed

the nun's/priest's unavailable celibacy

the obedience the stories of miracles, martyrdoms, missionaries, curings of leprosy

the offering up (to God) anger, rage, traumas

the repetition of trance-inducing rosaries

the Stations of the Cross, the Stations of the Cross

the relief and humiliation of weekly confession

the prayer beads and holy cards

the May Day hymn singing and rosary at the Lourdes shrine

the belonging the belonging the belonging the promise of heavenly reward

LIST 2: A FEW OF THOSE MEMORIES AS ART:

wearing blindfolds for a week (penance)

creation of Chicken Whiteface Woman (trying to be a statue)

anorexia videos (holy anorexia)

three-hour acupuncture performances (crucifixion)

riding bikes on Brooklyn Bridge tied by a rope to Tehching Hsieh (miracle of walking on water)

fourteen years of living art (imitation of priest's vestments)

Saint Voice: "In every respect we must be careful and alert because the devil never slumbers."Question: THAT IS CERTAINLY AN IDEALIZED LOOK AT RELIGION, MISS MONTANO. YOU ARE LOOKING WITHOUT THE POLITICS, WITHOUT THE PEOPLE, WITHOUT THE HYPOCRISY, WITHOUT THE COMPLEXITIES OF HUMAN FAILURE, HUMAN FOIBLES, AND FOLLIES. I WOULD CONVERT IMMEDIATELY TO CATHOLICISM READING YOUR MEMORY LIST. YOU BECAME A NUN, DIDN'T YOU?Natural Voice: It was only logical that this intense early training eventuated in a desire for sanctity and, in 1960, I entered a missionary convent. For two years: I talked only one hour a day and that was "in common" (a room with all nuns present).

I wore four layers of medieval, pre-Vatican II clothes called a "habit."

I chanted ecstatically with over three hundred nuns in a Nuns Story-type chapel and even though I was as high as a kite.

I was told by a nun who was a Katherine Hepburn look-alike, "Sister Rose, go and be an actress." I left, eighty-two pounds, anorexic and hungry for something that only art gave me. Mother art became my trauma catcher, my therapy, my confidant, my best friend, my guide, my confessor, my salvation. Art became religion. And in separating from Catholicism, I married art.QUESTION: WHAT KIND OF ART DID YOU PRACTICE?Natural Voice: I sculpted/welded the Visitation (Mary embracing Elizabeth, both pregnant), made crucifixes, and eventually presented live chickens as art for the MFA in Sculpture I earned in graduate school. I later invented performance for myself. That necessity was a fascination with the energy of aliveness. When I performed I got so much attention from others, which helped me attend to myself. When I attended to me, I discovered that the three billion cells in the body, when properly treated, can produce 1/2 watt of electricity in all three billion cells. WOW!!! Also, I could oscillate my brain waves at a frequency that produced addictively pleasing endorphine states of consciousness. The brain waves are: Beta, normal, thinking, 13-35 oscillations.

Alpha, rest, 8-13

Theta, 4-8 children, adults, dreams, strong emotions

Delta, 0-5 sleeping newborns By aesthetically purging subconscious material via public actions, via exposition of excesses of power, via exploration of autobiography as art ... the brain empties of obscurations, guilts, fears, shames, and goes into modes of consciousness curried by nuns, contemplatives, and all seekers of samadhi.

Question: I FEAR NARCISSISM AND TOO MUCH SELE I ALSO SEE EASTERN INFLUENCES IN YOUR WORK. THIS WORK SEEMS MORE ABOUT ART THERAPY THAN FORMALIST ART MAGAZINE INVESTI GATIONS.

Natural Voice: Exactly.Saint Voice: "We must shorten our time of prayer, however much joy it gives us, if we see our bodily strength waning or find that our head aches; discretion is most necessary in everything."Question: WHY DIDN'T YOU REMAIN CATHOLIC?Natural Voice: It wasn't cool to be a Catholic artist in the 60s and I regret that I followed that legend. But, I did study with my meditation teacher, Dr. R. S. Mishra, and lived in his yoga ashram and a Zen center. In the early 90s, I came crawling back on my hands and knees, broken, having taught seven years at a university, and asked for re-entry, abashed for having left my early enculturation and deeply engrained patterns. Is there a spiritual materialism at work here? Recently, I've been able to collage together the tolerance and beauty and warmth of yoga and all of the other lineages we ALL experience and include in our art. This is currently not a detriment to my (again) strict practice of Catholicism.Saint Voice: "His mercy is so great that He has forbidden none to strive to come and drink of this fountain of life." Question: WHAT IS YOUR ART NOW? Natural Voice: I'm back in life school performing and learning from my father in a performance I call Blood Family Art or Dad Art. I'm my 89-year-old dad's primary caretaker and I do this as art. It took me two years to call it art-it was very life-like. Calling it art makes it interesting and sacred. Especially, as two senior citizens, father and daughter, get to cross between the two worlds of the surreal and the real on a daily basis. He's playing with death and teaches me about that. I'm playing with aging and have not taught anyone about that yet.Saint Voice: "Cease as I have said to have fear where there is no fear."Question: DOES IT BOTHER YOU THAT A UCSD PROFESSOR, V. RAMA CHANDRAN, POSITS THAT SPIRITUAL ECSTASY/HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SAMADHI YOU TALKED ABOUT IS THE RESULT OF MISFIRINGS FROM THE BRAIN'S TEMPORAL LOBE WHEN IT GOES INTO SEIZURES? IS GOD A G-SPOT IN THE BRAIN?Natural Voice: That kind of information makes me very nervous. But, it adds to my faith and doesn't shake it because even now I am practicing blind obedience. Obedience is a must. Before I was obedient only to my art muse.Saint Voice: "The soul is like an infant still at its mother's breast."Question: WHAT IS THE WORK LIKE NOW, GIVEN 9/11?

Natural Voice: The trauma of 9/11 has forced the entire universe into a monastic state of THETA brain wave oscillations. Trauma elicits THETA. We are all at 4-8 oscillations, like newborns, like adults sleeping, death on our left shoulder. Artists will not be muzzled or silenced forever but we are taking our time to co-feel the ecstasy of impermanence, with everyone leveled by tragedy. As mystics of matter, we will soon know when to sing again.Question: HOW DO WE CREATE A NEW SONG?Saint Voice: Remember how Saint Augustine tells us about his seeking God in many places and eventually finding Him within himself? [All quotations of St. Theresa of Avila taken from The Interior Castle

Saturday, December 17, 2016

11.29.16

The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) was one of the first museums to focus on collecting Conceptual art. Since the 1960s, it has amassed works by Tom Marioni, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Ant Farm, and this commitment has not waned since, as witnessed by the recent acquisition of dealer Steven Leiber’s collection. Constance Lewallen was instrumental in building Berkeley’s collection. As a curator at the institution for over three decades, she worked closely with many of the artists featured in “Mind over Matter,” a survey she recently organized of pieces by first-generation Conceptual artists within BAMPFA’s holdings. The exhibition, which she discusses here, is on view through December 23, 2016.I CAME INTO THE ART WORLD during the seminal period of Conceptual art, which reflected the vast political and social changes taking place worldwide. In New York, working at the Bykert Gallery, I met artists like Michael Snow, Vito Acconci, Jan Dibbets. In Los Angeles I worked with artists who were connected to CalArts, including Jack Goldstein and Douglas Huebler; John Baldessari has continued to be a friend, and an inspiration. In 1980, I got a crash course in Bay Area Conceptual artists when I created a chronology for the catalogue for “Space/Time/Sound,” at SFMOMA.
With “Mind over Matter,” I wanted to emphasize that everything we’re seeing now in terms of “new” art internationally is derived from this early period. At the time, many people thought it was an endgame: “Where do you go from here?” But it turned out to be such an extremely fertile period. It was also a moment of innocence; I think people respond to this work because it’s not about commercialism, it’s not about money, it’s not about fame. It’s for artists to address their friends or each other, and there’s something so wonderful about that that’s really lost now.
Many Conceptual artists were interested in getting art into the world without announcing that it was art. Stephen Kaltenbach made bronze plaques bearing words—Art Works is the one I have in the show—that he intended to be buried in cement and unlabeled, so people wouldn’t necessarily know they were works of art. (He was also one of the first to place anonymous ads in Artforum, in 1968 and 1969.) Mail art, begun in earnest by Fluxus artists, was adopted by Conceptual artists as another new way of disseminating ideas—as were artists’ books.
When women come into the picture in the early ’70s on the wave of feminism, the body, which on the West Coast was already a new area of exploration, becomes very politicized (then came ACT UP and the Guerrilla Girls to illustrate that yes, art can effect political change). Carolee Schneemann’s iconic performance Interior Scroll is represented by a photograph of her pulling out a scroll from her vagina while delivering a monologue. At the time, men dismissed the piece, and many women thought she was exploiting herself—she got it from both sides. Now, she’s being recognized for her groundbreaking work. But it took a long time.
People often think Conceptual art is drily intellectual—that can be true, but it can also be humorous—and beautiful and emotional. In Mitchell’s Death, Linda Montano relates the story of her husband’s accidental death. You see only her face, eventually pierced with acupuncture needles; it’s the most emotional piece in the show. One ought not say “beautiful” in describing a work by John Cage because he wasn’t thinking about making beautiful art, nor were most Conceptual artists. Yet Cage’s Plexigram, which consists of several Plexiglas sheets bearing variously colored words and word fragments derived by chance from the dictionary—it’s complicated, as his work always is…but it really is beautiful.
I juxtaposed Jim Melchert’s film Untitled, in which an unclothed woman and man playfully throw buckets of water at each other, with the Relation in Space series Marina Abramović and Ulay performed in the 1976 Venice Biennale—again, it’s two naked figures, but their encounters become increasingly violent. Media Burn, a spectacular performance event Ant Farm enacted in 1975 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, is a funny and sharp critique—a collision between two American icons, the car and the television. They made a video out of the performance: It’s not just a document, it’s a landmark early video piece. And of course there’s Baldessari, who has always used humor to great effect. At first he was dissed by East Coast artists because they thought, “Humor?—can’t be serious.” But of course it can be; I’ve included his well-known video where he takes different poses while announcing, “I’m making art.” It’s a commentary on the Nauman line, “Whatever I do in my studio is art.”

Friday, December 16, 2016

DAD ART PERFORMANCE/HEALING COLLAGE: SOME INFORMATION: A 3 HOUR EXPERIENCEDAD ART PERFORMANCE/HEALING COLLAGE is an opportunity for a willing community to see, learn about, interact with and experience aesthetically/performatively the old age, sickness and death of my father Henry Joseph Montano as life/art. In coming into contact with another person's life story and their eventual death, we will see, be reminded of and participate in the feelings associated with our own deaths. That is important work.
The video is a document of the time I took care of my father from 1998-2005 in Saugerties NY, after I left UT Austin.

Death, a tabooed subject and not always out of the closet of fear and dread, must be aesthetically exposed/experienced as the natural event that it is. Why? To prepare us courageously for our own inevitable deaths and help us all make some alliance and friend with that fact. We all share life and we all will experience the end game. Let us collectively help each other do that.
I have found that by opening doors to the SUBJECT of death, I am asking death for friendship and knowledge and understanding. In doing so,
my personal spiritual journey and curiosity are becoming educated to our natural and shared human situation. A good thing, I think..THE PERFORMANCE:

CAST OF VOLUNTEERS:
1. One or two MC's. They will have/use a whistle or a suitable hand held/blown noise device so that they interrupt the "solemnity" of both the images on video and performative actions with a festivity/jesterlyness but dignified sacredness.
2. The secretary who writes down "letters to death" dictated by the audience members who come onstage and visit the secretary at their desk. The secretary can instruct the audience member what to do. The audience member talks, the secretary writes. All letters begin with DEAR DEATH........
3. The water-giver. One person who offers water to audience members who come to them for healing "water." It can be a glass of water, a spritz of rose water from a spritz bottle, a bowl of water that the audience member drinks from or puts their finger in to bring to a place on their body that needs healing. The exact way the water person wants to share water is designed by them. The water giver instructs the audience member what to do.
4. Two grief counselors sit in front of empty chairs and when an audience member sits down across from them, they listen to stories of death told by members of the audience visiting them onstage at the death-counselor station. They can say," Do you want to tell me about death?" Then they just listen. No advice is needed from the counselors.
5. The audience members come to the mic to say the name of the person they are remembering who has died. Or the mic can be passed around in the audience by the MC's. They are welcome to say the names of people who have died who they want to remember. Or they can say this: IM SORRY...... I FORGIVE YOU AND I FORGIVE MYSELF. Their choice. The MC occasionally helps this to happen. If there is a written program handed out to the audience before the event, this will be written in the program so they can read it.
6. The singer. Montano will sing 7 songs, one every 20 minutes to honor and remember her father's love of music, his time in his band where he played trumpet. My mother sang in this band as well. The MC calls me to the microphone to sing 7 times at designated and equally spaced times, keeping track of the correct times to invite me to sing.
7. The parade leader will come up at the end of the performance and lead us all outside so we can burn the letters to death in a container. There can be many parade leaders. They also lead us in dancing ADDICTED TO LOVE via a boombox sound system after the burning of the letters. They can make festive parade "flags" or have sticks with yarn on them and other attractive things to bring attention to the parade's actions. Musical Instruments/singing can be included if they want. The parade person/persons come into the performance space and invite people to follow them via verbal instruction or if the mood needs they can use hand gestures/silence. If the atmosphere calls for it, all can walk out in silence. The parade person/persons need to be sensitive to the mood needed at the time. This instruction/invitation can also be included in the program notes.

THE ATMOSPHERE:
All is happening simultaneously. There is no fixed focus. All can be talked over/interrupted. There are no mistakes possible in this experience because it is an event of natural occurrences/intensely seen and felt truths and over-lapping experiences. Collectively we will be supporting each other and learning together a new language.

THE STAGE AND PROPS:

FRONT STAGE/MID STAGE: The MC's will stand and move around and interact with the audience. They will either share a mic or there will be two mics for the MC's. The second or third mic will be set for reverb/digital delay for Linda when she sings and also for audience when they come up to say the names of their deceased friends.

TO THE RIGHT OF THE MC'SFACING THE AUDIENCE: There will be four chairs next to each other. The two grief counselors will sit in two of them, side-ways to audience. Audience members will sit in the empty chairs to talk with the grief counsellors who, by the way, are just listening to stories. They have no need to know how to counsel.
The MC's will see when there is a need for an audience member to come to a chair or go to the water station or to write a letter. They will keep the flow going but in a very scared and "ritualistic" manner.

BACK STAGE/ RIGHT BACK: There is a table. The letters to death secretary will sit with their back to the audience with a death mask on the back of their head. They face the person sitting in a chair while they write the letters. They need paper and a pen to write with. Table and two chairs.

BACK STAGE/BACK LEFT: The water giver is in back of a table. Standing. On the table are the things they choose to use to offer water to audience members.

LEFT STAGE/ FRONT: Microphone is there for audience members who want to honor their friends with their friend's name or do the I'm Sorry incantation. But also they can do this when the MC's pass their mic to the siting audience. I will use this microphone when I come up to sing so the mic has to be calibrated for my need to have reverb or digital delay.

LIGHTING:
Each station can be lit from above, shining down except for the MC's and singer . But lighting needs to be sufficiently bright enough so that it is possible for audience members to walk safely onto the stage.

SOUND:
There are 4 layers of sound:
1. Sound from the video.
2. Sound from the MC's mic on a mic stand.
3. Sound from my mic on a mic stand, adjusted for delay/reverb.
4. Sound for the "music" that I sing. I sing along with either a trumpet or a guitar accompaniment. I will bring a cd of this music. It is to be calibrated so whenever I get up to sing and indicate a signal to begin, the "next" song is played.
5. Sound for ADDICTED TO LOVE outside around the fire which can be a campfire if you wish. This sound can be on a boombox, or anything simple but loud.

ACTIONS:
As we walk onstage, there will be a you tube of bird sound/images, low volume already playing as people come into the theatre.
Each actor will go to the standing mic center stage and say their name and will simply say what they will be doing.
We go to our stations and perform the actions, not "paying attention" to the video onscreen because you will have seen it before the night of the performance via you tube or vimeo. It is important that everyone pay attention to their action and not to the screen or anyone else's action. This concentration will help make the energy of the performance more focused.
At the end of the video, after the credits, the parade people will come to gather each of us and we leave via the front door while humming one note. Parade people also gather the audience members and we all go outside, form a circle around the burning container and the secretary puts the letters one by one into the fire. After the LETTERS TO DEATH are burned, we then all dance to ADDICTED TO LOVE. THE END.

COSTUMES:
Please see Robert Graham's ADDICTED TO LOVE youtube before the performance. Please wear:
1. BLACK CLOTHES: As nice as possible. Everything black.
2. GREAT SHOES: In keeping with a "funeral home" look. Black. Don't buy anything but they need to look good/polished.
3. FABULOUS HAIR OR WIG: Very Glamour/Vogue. Cover all tattoos. Somber but Glam look.
4. EXCESSIVE MAKEUP: So it looks glamorous.
5. SUNGLASSES: Can be taken on and off, but walk out with them on/leave with them on. If you need to take them off to make eye contact with an audience member at your station, please feel free to do so. Healing contact is most important.
6. Please bring you costume to the rehearsal. More than one if you have a question.

PROPS:
1. Four chairs for grief counsellors.
2. Table and two chairs for secretary. Paper and pen for letter writing.
3. Table and water props for water giver.
4. Sound makers for MC's.
5. Festive things for parade leaders.

The heyoka (heyókȟa, also spelled "haokah," "heyokha") is a kind of sacred clown in the culture of the Lakota people of the Great Plains of North America. The heyoka is a contrarian, jester, and satirist, who speaks, moves and reacts in an opposite fashion to the people around them. Only those having visions of the thunder beings of the west, the Wakíŋyaŋ, and who are recognized as such by the community, can take on the ceremonial role of the heyoka.The Lakota medicine man, Black Elk, described himself as a heyoka, saying he had been visited as a child by the thunder beings.[1] (Thunderbirds).MONTANO SAYS:

What a relief finding an anthropological home for my proclivities, my calling, my bizarre/radical/dangerous/sloppy/antisocial actions which I have pursued all of my life and have called "art."
Knowledge is power and Wikipedia is often the good news deliverer. For my argument, I have re-posted everything this secular bible Wikipedia, said about the word Heyoka, because that word is relevant to my need for affirmation and inclusion. We all need that! To be tribed and part of the hive mind and my hive mind of choice is the American Indian Heyoka. Truly I want to be known as that and also a performance artist. No longer embarrassed by my need to be/do/think opposite, I have found inclusion in the ancients whose vocations are to bless by being wrong, bless by having been visited by the destructive powers of thunder and lightening, blessed by being willing to be the perennial outsider.
I'm just like them.

WIKIPEDIA SAYS:

The Heyókȟa is thought of as being backwards-forwards, upside-down, or contrary in nature. This manifests by their doing things backwards or unconventionally — riding a horse backwards, wearing clothes inside-out, or speaking in a backwards language. For example, if food is scarce, a heyókȟa may sit around and complain about how full he is; during a baking hot heat wave, a heyókȟa might shiver with cold and put on gloves and cover himself with a thick blanket. Similarly, when it is freezing he might wander around naked, complaining that it is too hot. A unique example is the famous heyókȟa sacred clown called "the Straighten-Outer":

He was always running around with a hammer trying to flatten round and curvy things (soup bowls, eggs, wagon wheels, etc.), thus making them straight.

Not until 2015 when my car with me in it was struck by lightening, was I a bonafide Heyoka and member of this esteemed SACRED CLOWN CLUB which I became interested in back in the late 70's when I lived in California and attended American Indian ceremonies in New Mexico with Pauline Oliveros and the Rothenbergs. That began my fascination and always re-fascination with the culture that loves the earth; my fascination with the people who step softly on the earth; my fascination with their methodology of respect for all of the earth's animals and their fascination with their commitment to feeling breathtaking beauty.
These indigenous people and we performance artists as well, have a way of playing with brain waves, with vibrational frequencies, with energies, with the sacred, that seperates us from everyday/ordinary mind-goers. We tricksters climb the ladder going up and down from Delta Waves (babies, deep relaxation, sleep) 0HTZ-4HTZ to Theta Waves 4-8 HTZ(hallucinations, meditation) to Alpha Waves 8HTZ-12HTZ(day dream) to Beta 12-40 HTZ to Gamma 40 HTZ.. These journeys are erratic and unpredictable and allow both the performance artist and the audience-viewer to play mentally with our own hidden stuff, with our own subconscious , with our issues in a way that a clearing and spaciousness can be practiced as art and later applied to daily life; articulated as loving awareness. For you see, the Sacred Clown/Performance Artist has an important duty. That of mind cleaner!

WIKIPEDIA SAYS:The heyókȟa symbolizes and portrays many aspects of the sacred beings, the Wakȟáŋ. His satire presents important questions by fooling around. They ask difficult questions, and say things others are too afraid to say. Their behavior poses questions as do Zenkoans. By reading between the lines, the audience is able to think about things not usually thought about, or to look at things in a different way.Principally, the heyókȟa functions both as a mirror and a teacher, using extreme behaviors to mirror others, and forcing them to examine their own doubts, fears, hatreds, and weaknesses. Heyókȟa have the power to heal emotional pain; such power comes from the experience of shame — they sing of shameful events in their lives, beg for food, and live as clowns. They provoke laughter in distressing situations of despair, and provoke fear and chaos when people feel complacent and overly secure, to keep them from taking themselves too seriously or believing they are more powerful than they are.[3]In addition, sacred clowns serve an important role in shaping tribal codes. Unbound by societal constraints, heyókȟa are able to violate cultural taboos freely and thus critique established customs.[4] Paradoxically, however, by violating these norms and taboos, they help to define the accepted boundaries, rules, and societal guidelines for ethical and moral behavior. They are the only ones who can ask "Why?" about sensitive topics; they use satire to question the specialists and carriers of sacred knowledge or those in positions of power and authority.

For people who are as poor as us, who have lost everything, who had to endure so much death and sadness, laughter is a precious gift. When we were dying like flies from white man's disease, when we were driven into reservations, when the government rations did not arrive and we were starving, watching the pranks and capers of Heyókȟa were [sic] a blessing.

MONTANO SAYS:

Like the HTZ-frequency of the earth, performance artists have their ears to the breath of the ground and march to the beat of a different drummer, one that is not only heard by animals and trees but also by infants before they reach discursive/enculturated/highly negatively addictive mind controlled thought.

I realized all my life that I was really different, although my mother had told me that as well as she tried to make sense of her child rearing skills and my interpretation of her best efforts. But it seemed I had access to an intuition that I didn't own but owned ME and allowed me to know the code that opened the door to siddhis which Hindus say are fantastical inner/outer phenomenon. It was absolutely apparent in 1966-69 when my 3 sculpture professors came into my studio at the University of Wisconsin Madison and asked, "Montano, what are you going to do for your MFA show?"

1. My response was , "Chickens." Had I known then that the role of opposition and jester was my sacred calling, I would not have been as surprised as I was by my answer because although I had a few reasons to say the word chickens, having visited them at the University's agricultural school while an MFA candidate so as to escape the art of the male /fellow grads, it was still an upside down answer and one that totally surprised me. It was a heyokas answer perchance given I was in an elite graduate art program at a prestigious university?

2. Or maybe this is why I said, chickens? My father had put the family's chickens in their kitchen as a prank when his mother would not allow him to go to a Saturday afternoon movie and realizing the punk gesture of my father and his bravado, I imitated his courage some 40 years later by putting chickens I an art gallery

3. Or was this the reason? My mother's chicken collection graced every table, shelf and bookcase in our middle class home.

4. Subconsciously this might really be the reason? I was feeling "chicken", the bad aspect of chicken; that is fearful, overpowered, misoginistically overlooked, patriarchically powered-over and out of my league at this over abundantly male and large sculpture making department comprised of 404,947 testesteroned ones and 3 of us brave warrior women also in the sculpture department. Having just graduated with an MA from an all womens university at an Italian Medici-made castle in Florence, I was not ready for this boys club. And remember, it was 1976 when women were seen and not heard, present but not presiding. Hiding behind live chickens was a wise ploy.

CHICKENARAMRA by Linda Mary Montano. Chickens were once dinosaurs. Now they mentor "How to Focus."

WIKIPEDIA SAYS:

Only those who have had visions of the thunder beings of the west can act as heyokas. They have sacred power and they share some of this with all the people, but they do it through funny actions. When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the West, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greener and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm.

MONTANO SAYS: Had I had indigenous training in otherness, had I danced Chicken dances with soft moccasins as a child, had I been sent to a menstral hut at 13 for a week to live with other mensrating women and girls, had I been encouraged to ask for a vision in my private hilltop quest, had I ridden bareback and had my hair braided by elders, then my choice for using live chickens as material/theme/subject for my art would have seemed more natural and less disconcerting to both myself, my audience, the faculty and administration of the art school which removed my three, four by eight foot chicken wire cages with three chickens in each cage nine total. That's what I had to do when wealthy patron-donors toured the new art department building and I was told, "They just won't understand showing chickens as art, Linda. Please take them away. " I had by then gotten my MFA so I gave the chickens to the janitor. Boo Hoo, had I known that I was a Heyoka, I would have gotten in the cage myself with them and refused to move!

In Lakota mythology, Heyókȟa is also a spirit of thunder and lightning. He is said to use the wind as sticks to beat the drum of thunder. His emotions are portrayed opposite the norm; he laughs when he is sad and cries when he is happy, cold makes him sweat and heat makes him shiver. In art, he is depicted as having two horns, which marks him as a hunting spirit.[6]

MONTANO SAYS:

In conclusion:

1.Supposedly, in Mexico City there are artists who have been struck by lightning and lived to tell it. They meet together and I would like to join them some day.

2.My mother always told me, "Linda, you are five years ahead of the times."

And also, "Linda, you're different, you're just different!" I include my video MOM ART as proof of her certification of my Heyokahood. "Thanks Mom for seeing me so clearly and guess what? You were pretty different yourself! Heyokas-r-us."

2. TWO OF THOSE FRIENDS, MAKE PLANS AND HAVE COME A LONG DISTANCE TO GIVE AND RECEIVE LOVE AND PRESENCE. MIRACLE 2.

3. AT AN UNDESIGNATED TIME, A BURNING CANDLE SPONTANEOUSLY EXTINGUISHES ITSELF AND GOES OUT BY ITSELF AS THE THREE SIT AT A TABLE DISCUSSING DEATH OF A MUTUAL FRIEND/DYING/ART. MIRACLE 3.

4. AS THE THREE LISTEN TO THE MEDITATION MUSIC OF PAULINE OLIVEROS, SUNLIGHT COMES THROUGH THE WINDOW FOR 1 MINUTE AND LANDS ON THE FACE OF ONE OF THE FRIENDS, INDICATING THAT THE HONORING OF PAULINE IS RECOGNIZED/RECEIVED BY HER. MIRACLE 4.

5. AFTER WE FINISHED LISTENING TO PAULINE'S MUSIC, RAQUEL MAGICALLY, ACROBATICALLY AND EASILY GOT UP/FLEW OUT FROM A RECLINED LAZY-BOY CHAIR WHICH WAS STILL IN THE RECLINDED AND LOCKED POSITION. SHE "EMERGED" AS IF PROPELLED BY AN ENERGY AND FORCE BEYOND HUMAN EFFORT AND UNDERSTANDING. MIRACLE 5.

6. TODAY IS DECEMBER 6, 2016, THE FEAST OF SAINT NICOLAS. THE THREE OF US MET YESTERDAY AND ARE STILL ALIVE TODAY. MIRACLE 6.

Friday, December 2, 2016

Our lives can become infinite rehearsals of our parent's dreams for us. We do and redo and do again what they have taught us and what we have seen. We must re-do it ourselves. That is our job, that is our health, that is our necessity.

This workshop will allow all participants to

1. LOOK AT THE REAL STORY

2. WRITE A NEW ONE

3. PERFOM SKETCHES FROM THE OLD

4. RE-PERFORM THE NEW

Fairy Tales are kind re-enactments of truth made livable by taking back the power from our story and history and it's issues and making a new STORY.

Yes, I am interested in being there at your university to explore with the community my interest in the BODY AS ART.

I have performed numerous endurances over the years, the longest being 14 YEARS OF LIVING ART, an experience based on the seven Chakras in the body. During those 14 years, I wore one color clothes and performed many other internal-external practices to help me align myself with the question of self identity.

While in residence at your University, I would like to share this ongoing body study and interest of mine with other collaborators/students who would like to be with me. The working title of my course is: RESTING WITH THE 7 GLANDS because over the years I have found that the word Chakras is too specific and not everyone thinks that they have Chakras! So the glands are more universally generic and palatable. My theory is that I must learn to "rest" creatively, physically, psychologically and in community before that final "REST IN PEACE" that I/we all will experience. My art prepares me always and I would like to share the methods I use to achieve that goal of awareness.

We will workshop these concepts together and study/research these concepts and see via reading/you tube/going to events in Utah, how other performance artists answer their personal questions about their art-life.

Right now, I see that I would like to arrange for 7 VENUES/CO-COLLABORATORS in your incredibly rich art community where we could present and share our research. Of course, I would be working with my research assistant to make those connections and times/places a reality. And we will also be in contact with other departments and places for assistance with video/lighting/sound.

While I am there, I will be doing my own private research and will share those findings with students-collaborators.

At this time of external chaos, violence, fear mongering and misunderstood clowning, I feel that the work of inner peace-making as art, is my contribution to the MESS. And I am most happy to share this message with your community.

FOR PAULINE
THE FEMALE MASTER OF CEREMONIES, RINGS A BELL AND SAYS: IT IS TIME TO BEGIN
THEN SAYS:NUMBER 1. FEEL THE AIR AROUND YOU. ( TIME WITH 2 BREATHS)NUMBER 2. ARE THERE LOVELY BIRDS IN THIS AIR?( TIME WITH 2 BREATHS)NUMBER 3. SOUND THE BIRDS, THE CHICKENS, THE CROWS, THE HAWKS AND THE BABY BIRDS , IN THEIR BIRD LANGUAGE.
THE MASTER OF CEREMONIES KEEPS TIME, AND WHEN THE TIMPE IS UP, RINGS A BELL, AND THEN SAYS: IT IS TIME TO END.LINDA MARY MONTANO

STATEMENT: Once an anorexic, always an anorexic. Once there are food issues in infancy, there are always food issues, at least this experience is true for me. Throughout my career, I have used my art to address my "life condition." For this AIOP performance I use the symbol of being a prisoner of my autobiography via the reference to prison food-bread and water.

PRIVATE ACTION:From Thursday, October 12, 2017- Sunday October 15, at 12 noon, I will eat only bread and water. Why? To address my own theological-physical-psychological relationship to food having been continually re-triggered by politically caused WORLD HUNGER.

PUBLIC ACTION:1. I will take a bus from Saugerties NY to NYC on Sunday morning, October 15th, continuing to eat bread and water on the bus.2. When I arrive in NYC, I will walk from the bus station to 14th street, the site of AIOP, while eating bread and water.3. When I reach the area where the AIOP performances are happening, I will be met by two women-collaborators, at approximately 12 Noon.4. We will stand on the sidewalk and they will apply a blindfold over my eyes.5. I will say audible words of healing as they slowly feed me a banana and a small yogurt. That is, I will be fed 2 bananas and two yogurts, one from each of the collaborators, who will be dressed like the women from Robert Graham's video: ADDICTED TO LOVE. 6. After I have eaten/been fed, I will iphone the Graham video and we will all dance with everyone there to the song, ADDICTED TO LOVE, intending to send THE FOOD OF LOVE to all who have not eaten that day throughout the world and that is alot of people needing alot of LOVE.7. After this action, I will immediately walk back to the bus while smiling. 8. I will also find a place to buy a piece of pizza and eat it as I walk up 8th Ave.9. I will buy a second piece of pizza near The Port of Authority and eat it in the bus while returning to Saugerties NY. I will smile while/after I eat the pizza. Nobody will know that I am smiling.

Linda Mary Montano

AIOP: LINDA NEEDS: If possible a bullhorn so can make R Graham song louder.. If not possible, that is ok
I will put out call for 2 WOMEN PERFORMERS in Franklin Furnace??? Or can AIOP do this instead?
The collaborators should be in touch with me via email: lindamontano@hotmail.com

BETH'S OPENING REMARKS FOR THE CELEBRATION OF 20 YEARS OF VIDEO...TOBE, LINDA AND MEG

WELCOME TO THE CELEBRATION OF TWENTY YEARS OF VIDEO WITH TOBE AND MEG

My name is Beth Wilson and I am the MC of this gala art/life celebration. I curated the Kingston Sculpture Show, 20 where Linda stayed in a jail cell at the empty Ulster County Jail and laughed with others for hours, accompanied by Kathe Izzo. Let's give me a round of applause. (Ring bell)

And now let's give ourselves A BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR COMING OUTSIDE IN NOVEMBER TO THE SAUGERTIES BEACH in the cold, wind, rain and snow. I will time the applause and ring a bell to end it. (Ring Tibetan bell to end it)

And let's give Tobe Carey a round of applause for editing and animating Linda Mary Montano's videos for 20 years. (Yayy, time, ring bell)

And let's give Meg Carey, Tobe's wife a round of applause for her kind hospitality to Linda in her home for 20 years the site of Tobe's studio. And for being the voice of the nurse in Linda's video, NURSE NURSE.

And let's give Linda a round of applause because she likes applause. (Bell)

Now, many of you here have filmed or performed in or made sound for or collaborated with Linda in one of the 40 tapes that she and Tobe made. Tobe and Meg will say a few words later but now, please take one minute to share with us the name of the tape you are in, what you did in the tape, and if possible show us 30 seconds of your tape on your IPhone. Or re-enact your performance if you wish.

(Keep time, keep it moving , active and celebratory.)

Thank you for coming to this extraordinarily wonderful celebration. And now for the cutting of the cake which says, (Read what it says)

MC. BETH WILSON: I would like to present a list of videos with local artists as collaborators. All of these videos plus many many more, have been edited and co-produced by TOBE CAREY. Let's give a round of applause to Tobe and Meg Carey for co-journeying.

Each person will discuss their video for a minute and show images if possible. I will keep time. Thank you. Beth.

These are videos including only upstate NY people. All 61 videos are free on u tube.

DEAR FRIENDS/COLLABORATORS:Please mark your calendars and come to this celebration .To share your collaboration with us:1. bring your cell phone if u wish. Wear what you wore in your video?2. dial to the you tube you are in3. let everyone crowd in to see it/you for 30 seconds4. talk 1-2 minutes about ur collaboration5. or perform as you wish. Beth Wilson will be the MC and will keep time/etc6. see you SUNDAY NOVEMBER 13.7. BYO popcorn and DRESS WARM. Invite ur friends also to come.In art/life/collaboration,LINDA AND TOBE